Think of a bus, and
a drab image will likely come to mind: a dimly lit depot somewhere in
the Midwest, stop-and-go traffic on a potholed city street, or unruly
school kids crammed onto grimy green vinyl seats. Buses are way down on
our lists of preferred conveyances, below the subways that run below them,
below even streetcars, one of which was at least named Desire. But even
so, you can’t argue with the engineers who adopted the word to describe
the circuits that move electronic information around. It’s a clipped
form of a term we borrowed from the French: voiture omnibus, which means
"vehicle for all." Teleflex’s MagicBus, by connecting a
wide array of control and display electronics on a single cable, fully
embodies the definition.

Aboard the MagicBus
you never know whom you’ll meet. Engine-monitoring data travels along
with the GPS boat position; course and speed ride side by side with info
from fuel-tank and water-temperature sensors; instructions from electronic
engine controls share space with switch inputs for bilge pumps, stateroom
lights, and the saloon stereo.

MagicBus, along with
the array of components that make up the Teleflex Intelligent System (TIS),
is the first such system on the market based on the NMEA 2000 open-architecture
protocol. Other onboard networks exist–most notably Raymarine’s
High Speed Bus 2, Furuno’s NavNet, and Mercury’s SmartCraft–but
so far only MagicBus has NMEA 2000 at its core. Its performance is impressive,
and its potential benefits for boat owners, boatbuilders, and even other
manufacturers of marine electronics are considerable.